I have a terrible memory.  It’s remarkable the things I have forgotten.  But if I close my eyes, I can still smell my sister as a baby.  I can feel the lightness of her body resting on my hip.  I can feel the texture of her scant head of hair and her polyester pajamas.  At 8 ½ years old, my friends had Kid Sister dolls, but I had the best kid sister, Morgain.

I have been aware of racism in a very personal way since I was very young.  I wouldn’t say that I was aware of it from Morgain’s birth, although we were certainly prepped by our parents for the reality that she would likely not look like us.  But, for the first few years of her life, I wouldn’t say that I recognized racism, although it did exist.

I was in middle school when I first began to realize what I would later learn is “white privilege.”  There came a point, (gradually, and then all at once) when I realized that people treated me differently and talked to me differently when I was with Morgain.  if I walked alone into a group of strangers, no one knew about my black family members.  I could walk freely, and without judgement, through groups of white people and no one would bother me.  I would see and hear all of the terrible things white people will do when they think they’re in the “safety” of an all-white group.  

Once they knew I had a black sister, it was totally different.   Sometimes it was aggressive or hurtful, but mostly, in a guarded way, as if they couldn’t say what they wanted to say when I was around.  

There are a lot of ugly people in this world, wearing a lot of beards in public.

Although my family story is not entirely unique (many people, including my husband, have similar family stories) it forced me to reckon with race and racism at a very young age.  What these experiences did teach me was that  “protecting the ones I love” wasn’t enough.  I could never be in every classroom, on every walk, bike or car ride, at every job interview.  It’s impossible for me to be there to protect the ones I love at every instance of racism and injustice.  So beginning in middle school, I began to realize that the best way to try and protect the ones I love is to try and change the world.  

Of course, I don’t feel like I can change the world.  Who does?  What 14-year-old girl in a blue collar neighborhood in Eugene, OR, thinks they can change the world?  But I can speak.  I can fight.  I can write.  I can work in my community in a way that helps create safe spaces for everyone.  And none of us is expected to change the whole world, but we can change the world for someone.

I have made so many mistakes throughout my life.  I have stayed silent when I should’ve been loud.  I have made jokes that I shouldn’t have made.  I have let people in my life that I shouldn’t have allowed in because they were toxic and harmful to me and those I love.  I have been scared shitless too many times to count.  I threw up behind some bushes in a very public place just two years ago confronting some red-faced, hateful white man.   But that is my journey.  We are all on one, together and alone.  

So, blogging with my sister; we’ve experienced so much together, yet separately. How we see and experience things is so different regarding so much of the same stuff.   We tend to agree on most things.  She is brilliant and funny and her voice needs to be heard.  I have seen it silenced too many times, sometimes by me (I am definitely one of those white people who has an opinion on every damn thing), so I’m looking forward to the opportunity to dialogue with her in this space.  Talking about it is the best place to start.  And I’ll take any excuse to talk to my kid sister!